Page:Artabanzanus (Ferrar, 1896).djvu/313

Rh I sprang forward, and said, while my whole frame shook with suppressed fury: "Reginald, you are a villain; it is time your artful plots came to an end—begone from the room, and from the house!" He looked at me with his black, staring eyes, and his corpse-like aspect, as if he could have annihilated me on the spot, and slowly turned, and walked out without saying a word. My poor Helen burst into an agony of weeping, and she permitted me to kiss her tears away.

'And while I pressed her to my heart, the often-renewed thought of a spiritual purity burned within me. We had lived together in the same house for years, and still stood, as it were, in the relationship of brother and sister; inexpressibly dear to each other, yet far apart, separated by mutual respect, and obedience to the laws of God. And while on that occasion I pressed her to my heart of hearts, I regarded her as a noble and a sacred being upon whom I could not for my very life inflict injury or insult.

'Feeling the determination working within me mightily to put away Reginald's hypocrisy from our house for ever, I followed him up to his room. He was already engaged in packing a trunk. He looked at me as I entered, and I saw that my fierceness frightened him.

'"Are you going?"' I said, with my teeth set, and my hands clenched, ready to spring upon him. I was the stronger of the two, and he knew it.

'"What a fuss," he said with a sneer, "you are making about nothing! Yes, I'm going. I would not stay another hour in your cursed house if you offered me its weight in gold; I have taken a lodging opposite, and I'll watch how you'll all get on without me, with not a man in it able to make up a prescription for a dog. A very fine thing! a man cannot speak to a girl, when he gets encouragement, without bringing down upon himself the wrath of Prince